Wireless communications devices provide a panoply of functions and applications that makes these devices increasingly popular. For some applications such as, for example, e-mail, address book, calendar, client-server synchronization ensures that the user's messages, contacts, and appointments are backed up at the server, thus enabling easy recovery of this data in the event that the user switches to a new device or wipes the device. For other applications, where device data is not backed up at a server, this data is vulnerable to being lost if the user wipes the device or switches to a new device.
For instance, this is a problem with PIN messaging since this form of instant messaging uses the unique device identifier (PIN) as the transport address and thus does not relay data through a server. Instead, PIN messages are communicated directly from one device to another via the wireless network without being routed through a messenger server. A buddy list (a list of PINs for each of the user's contacts), user settings or other such information for the PIN messaging application are thus vulnerable to being lost if the user switches to a new device or wipes the device. While it is known in the art to interpose a server and to register the user at the server by creating an account user login or user ID, this solution leads to password fatigue and the insecure practice of reusing passwords. Accordingly, there remains a need for a technique to preserve device data when a device is switched or wiped without exacerbating the problem of password fatigue.
It will be noted that throughout the appended drawings, like features are identified by like reference numerals.